Samuel 1:1-6 tells the story of a man who favored one wife (Hannah) over another, but the favored wife could not get pregnant. The other wife (Peninnah) tormented her.
For those of us that have had a problem or are having a struggle getting pregnant, you can relate to Hannah. It is so painful to go out to the malls or playgrounds and see everyone with babies and children. Hannah faced this daily, and the jealous taunting accusations of Peninnah made it worse. The household was a mess because of this. It seemed like God didn’t care.
In those days, children were a sign of God’s blessing, displayed as wealth, much like us driving around in expensive cars or wearing an extra size “rock” on our hands. This experience was harrowing for Hannah, and especially painful when they went to Shiloh to offer sacrifices to the Lord. A time of supposed rejoicing became a time of shame and pain. A woman who could not provide her husband with a son would not be welcome among the other women. It was probably on par with being an outcast (people with leprosy were outcasts.) It was her “fault.”
This bullying was such a terrible burden for Hannah to carry.
Where was the Lord, why did He not hear her many prayers? She probably exhausted herself, praying to no avail. Did God not care? Was He not a good God, loving in all His ways? How was this being loving, or was He using this intense pain for a much greater good?
At this point, I want to break from the storyline. It would be rather presumptions of me to say that all pain will be for this conclusion. I could not say that. There are many reasons for pain; some of it is our own doing. Other pain is inflicted upon us by others, and pain can come through natural disasters, a car accident, or a work injury, etc.. There are different types of pain, physical and or emotional, and many times it’s both. Therefore our goal is not to answer every reason why we experience pain, but why Hannah experienced it to see what we can apply to our own life. If not now, I’m sure the opportunity will come because God seems to use pain to get our attention.
Proverbs 18:14 has an interesting comment, “The Spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity (sickness) but a wounded (or broken) Spirit who can bear?
A broken spirit can happen for many reasons. A divorce can cause it; the loss of a child, rejection or betrayal by a friend and the list goes on. It has occurred numerous times throughout my life.
As a child I was blamed for my younger brother’s drowning, my mother regrets having said that but it has taken me thirty years to come to terms with it and forgive myself – that’s a long time for a child to carry such a weight. The upside is how God has used it in my life. Without trying to sound morbid, death is genuine to me. Having gone through that, I have no anchors in this life. I have committed 100% to The Lord. I tread lightly in this world and abundantly in the world to come. That has become my “coping mechanism” for what was once excruciating pain.
I have also struggled with deep insecurity, not because I was not loved growing up, but for years of my adult life, I felt God had rejected me, or at the least found me unfit. I have forever wanted to be a pastor, and to this day, I have the same desire. God had called several of my friends, but He never called me, so the enemy took that and turned it into rejection or and unfit vessel for such holy work. I needed to overcome that because it was breaking my Spirit, much like Hanna wanting to have a child.
The Holy Spirit sat me down one day after years of struggling with it and forced me to look at the Cross. He lovingly but firmly made me know that His lack of calling me into the ministry had nothing to do with being “fit or unfit,” we are all unfit. He said, “I didn’t want to lose you.”
At first, I was confused, how would you lose me, I am in the ministry, it’s all about You. His response was telling, ” because you would put the job of ministering and teaching before me, you would study the scriptures to preach a sermon but not to know me. You would get your sense of worth from the ministry but not from just simply being my son.”
I cried, so profound were His words to me and so tender and yet so right, a truth that I didn’t even realize about myself. His “no” had been anything but rejection. Now I am no longer interested in being anything other than His Son. My self-esteem would no longer center on what I did, my title, or any worldly praise or ambition, but it would come solely from His approval over my life; being His adopted son by Grace would become the sole joy of my life. From the heavy weight of inferiority and guilt to wings of freedom and happiness, that day, long in coming, changed my whole life.
Learning to be His son has become the adventure of my life, and it’s education. Nothing else matters. As His son, I seek to be not just good, but excellent in all that I undertake; caring for my wife and family, caring for His people, being a boss, performing my job as a landscaper and creating great designs and caring for my clients. Taking the high road in all things is what a son of the Most High King could not help but do.
Paul said he was constrained by the love of Christ, in 2 Corinthians 5:14,
“For the love of Christ constraineth us;”
As if to say I have no choice in the matter, this is the path I must travel; there are no other options.” I have no options, nor do I want any. The narrow road with all its constrictions, pain, and struggle is just fine for me because, with each difficulty or pain, my “sonship” grows deeper.
Often we think someone close to the Lord does not have the normal every day struggles with family, work, neighbors, etc. I have come to find that the opposite is true. Closeness to God comes as a result of these struggles.
A commentator on Abraham’s Lincoln life said if it had not been for the churlish ill-nature of his wife, he would not have had the character and the capacity to hold the struggling nation together. Those years of his presidency were difficult and dark. The struggles in his marriage drove deep his dependence upon the Lord, building within him a character that was able to endure and provide the leadership the divided nation needed.
In my family, wife, and two girls, we have had our struggles. My oldest left home at eighteen with a broken spirit. I knew that in that condition, she would be an easy mark for any lies or traps Satan would put before her, and he did. For three years, I cried daily, so deep was the pain.
I never cried like this before; I cried inside. I still needed to get up and run the business, meet clients, etc., yet I was so conscious that my inner person was continuously weeping over my daughter as if she had died. I could not understand the pain.
As I sought the Lord to understand it, I saw in my mind cows getting branded on a ranch. I saw the red hot iron of the brand, and I heard the cow crying as the brand marked its skin. I heard and felt it. The branding though seemingly cruel, scored the cow; it belonged to that ranch now, and from that ranch came its provision. It wasn’t just any cow, it had an identity, a home, and it belonged. God was using the pain to brand me as His.
I accepted that, but then the pain intensified, and I cried out to Him again. I saw myself on a table in a surgery room, and yet I saw the red hot brand with my chest exposed, and then I saw the doctor plunge the red hot brand unto my chest, and everything in me freaked out, the pain was beyond anything I could imagine. I cried, shouted for it to stop, but steady was the doctor’s hand as he keeps the force of the brand on my chest.
I fought with all my might, but in time I grew exhausted. All I remember thinking is that this nightmare had now become my new reality. Where I found the strength to get up and go to work, I will never know other than it was God’s supernatural strength that was carrying me during those years. My steps were heavy, and my interaction with others was limited as I sought to do only what I had to do. I found that the more I spent time in prayer, the more I was able to cope with life and the pain.
Prayer became an hour-long event each day after dismissing the crews to work. Rain or shine, cold or hot, it didn’t matter. I had a place in front of my shop where I walked that became my meeting place with the Lord.
I began to pray for other parents having struggles with their kids, my brothers, and sisters in the faith that suffered persecution in communist or Muslim countries also. And finally, after months of prayer, the Lord gave me another picture.
I saw the figure of a man with a shovel in his hand. He was digging into my heart, and with each plunge of the shovel, piercing pain ensued. I cried out to the Lord to tell the man to stop. He replied that He was the man. He was using the pain to dig a well in my heart so that I could hold more of His love. I cried, never anticipating that answer, and though the pain did not lessen, knowing the reason allowed me to welcome it. He wanted to love me on a deeper, more intimate level, and He was using this hardship for this reason.
I did a lot of crying during this period. It was unlike any period in my life. God was doing an upheaval, dethroning Arthur and placing Himself squarely on the throne of my heart with a much larger capacity to receive His love for myself and, in turn, to genuinely love others.
The pain continued as if I was in mourning, and my prayers continued to be my source of strength. I felt His presence with me. Upon ending my prayers each day, I felt as though I had to come back to earth, so focused on the realm of worship. I often thought that I was before His throne. I had never felt that before these times. I learned that He cried with me. The Holy Spirit was leading me through a “desert period” of my life where intercessory prayer became my source of life and strength coupled with the Word.
Through prayer, I was able to participate with the Spirit in bringing my daughter back home. She would come over to visit and tell Lisa that she could not understand why she didn’t enjoy “sinning” like her friends; she just wasn’t into it.
Those exact words would be my focus for the week. I shared my prayers with no one, so I knew that this was God encouraging me. If Satan was going to mess with my daughter, he was going to get the fight of his life. I grew bold and more confident as the Lord continued to confirm to me He was hearing my prayers and not only for my daughter but for other parents as well.
It has been a long process, but now I can confidently say, “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.” I have no fear now, whereas before, I feared greatly.
In the third year of this period, my youngest daughter lost her finance in an auto accident. He was a police officer and was run over by a drunk driver. I loved him and grieved for him, but I was grieving for my daughter. I felt as if Matt died twice in my heart. I was “trained” in personal death given by background, but I had never anticipated grieving for my daughter’s loss.
All pain has a purpose when you commit it to the Lord. It doesn’t have to crush you. It can be the very thing that gives you wings toward Heaven. Loss or pain comes in stages. We are not able to cope with it all at once; it’s God’s protection mechanism for us. Therefore know that it takes time, and the time it takes is personal for each one of us. Following the pattern I shared, making time for prayer and the Word, drawing close to the Lord is where you will find your strength. God’s presence is the most essential healing mechanism we have.